The present invention relates to an apparatus for manufacturing a coil element, such as a tracking coil for an optical pick-up, by winding a coil wire, formed with a plurality of coil portions thereon, onto a bobbin.
A coil element such as a tracking coil is essentially composed of a bobbin and a coil wire. A plurality of coil portions of the coil wire are bonded and fixed to predetermined positions of a peripheral side portion of the bobbin, with the ends of the coil wire being connected and fixed to the terminals of the bobbin. Furthermore, the peripheral side portion of the bobbin is formed with a peripheral groove so that slack portions of the coil wire are pushed therein.
In order to manufacture such a coil element by winding a coil wire onto a bobbin, a coil wire-forming apparatus includes a plurality of coil-forming portions for winding a coil wire thereon and a winding means for effecting coil portion formation by winding coil wire around respective coil forming portions. By use of the apparatus, the coil portions are first formed. Then, a bonding agent is applied to predetermined positions on the side periphery of the bobbin, and the coil wire is wound around the side periphery of the bobbin, bond-fixing the coil portions onto the predetermined positions. After temporarily fixing both ends of the coil wire by winding the ends onto the bobbin terminals, they are respectively connected and fixed to the terminals by soldering.
Meanwhile, conventionally, the operation of winding the coil wire around the side peripheral portion of the bobbin, the operation of rectifying loosened coil wire portions, and operation of connecting the coil wire ends to the bobbin terminals are performed manually. However, for the improvement of productivity, the mechanization of the respective operations, automating the entire manufacturing process, has been demanded.
However, for automation of the manufacture of the coil element, there are the following considerations in the respective operations.